Revel Rockies Marathon

Denver, Colorado

	Time/ Pace	Div.	Div. Pl.	Gen. Pl.	Ov. Pl.	Bib #
Owen	3:34:02 8:10	Male 40-44	29/ 70	119/ 389	164/ 783	3533

Written by Owen:

I am so far behind on blog entries, that I am going to have to let the pictures tell the story for the most part. This trip was so much fun, along with the most driving I've ever done in such a short period of time.

To save money, we decided to drive to Denver, Colorado, from Charlotte, North Carolina. Plane tickets for five people was just too much. So we rented a car and did the long trip. We were gone a week, but four solid days of that was nothing but driving.

Thursday, we drove from Charlotte to Warrenton, Missouri. It was such a long drive, when we finally got there, I couldn't believe we had that long to drive the next day as well.

Friday, we drove from Warrenton, Missouri to Denver. Along the way we stopped and had a great meal with Malissa's friend, Jen, from when she lived in Yuba City, California in high school.

Late Friday, we finally made it to Denver! It was such a long drive, but so worth it. We met our great friends Jay and Aimee Fass, who drove from Clinton, Utah to meet us there for the weekend. Their daughter Malya is Alicia's very good friend.

On Saturday, the boys (Michael, Kyle, Jay, and myself) got up and went to the expo to pickup my race packet. While we were doing that, the girls (Malissa, Aimee, Alicia, and Malya) went to get their nails done.

Sunday morning I woke up very, very early. Malissa drove me to where the shuttle would take me to the start. I got there as the first shuttles were opening their doors and got on one.

The shuttle took us up the mountain, and after a while the bus driver announced he was lost. We were in the mountains, nobody had a signal on their phones, and the road was way too skinny to turn around. We came upon a "Road Closed" sign. The driver and a few runners got off the bus to go look ahead of the sign, and realized it was there to prevent traffic from driving on the course. So they moved the sign and we got back on the right track and made it to the start.

Once I was at the start we waited for 6:00 am to get here, which was the scheduled start time. They announced they were having some shuttle problems and the race would be delayed. Come to find out, the shuttle company didn't send enough, so the last 100 or so marathon runners didn't make it and most of the half-marathon runners didn't get to run. I couldn't believe it. With all that goes into training for a race, and traveling, I couldn't imagine if I was one of those that didn't get to run.

I had set a pretty foolish goal to try and break 3 hours in this race, but I knew going into it, that was out of the question. It was an all downhill course, but I wasn't fit enough to run that fast for 26.2 miles. So I just ran.

At about mile 13, my ankle really started to bother me. The road had left to right slope, so my ankles were always at a weird angle. With the downhill pounding, it really started to take a toll. I had to run/walk. My watch was set to beep every half-mile so I would try to make it to the next beep, then walk for 30 seconds or so.

The last little bit was actually uphill, that was a cruel joke.

The next morning we had appointments to get new tattoos. I got a one about the Boston Marathon I ran, and Malissa got a bible verse on her side.

Then we went to a Colorado Rockies game. We sat in the cheap seats, but had a great time.

On the way home, we stopped at the Arch, and actually went up inside it. That was a lot of fun.